I like collecting Evangelion books, so a friend convinced me to start writing book reviews on my blog, in case that would be helpful to other Eva fans. I won’t bother with reviewing the various manga series that are already available in English, since I figure that everybody has heard of those already. But even with skipping all those manga, the rest of my collection is over 87 books (EDIT: Now it's over 100 books!), so this will be quite a project!

Listed below are the book reviews I've already done (I also wrote a few "Evangelion analysis" articles that include information from official books). Feedback is appreciated! Also, if you have questions about any of these books, feel free to ask me. I'll keep updating this post as I do more book reviews, so stay tuned!

Der Mond is a great book-- I bought it back when I first finished Evangelion, back when I was about 12. It was also interesting to see some other drawings that Sadamoto did, whether from other anime or just original drawings.

Nuclear Lunchbox wrote:Der Mond is a great book-- I bought it back when I first finished Evangelion, back when I was about 12. It was also interesting to see some other drawings that Sadamoto did, whether from other anime or just original drawings.

Great book but too short in my opinion. I prefer Die Sterne.

My baby is The Newtype 100% artbook, way better than Der Mond. Mine it's a Japanese first edition. I got it for free (no, I didn't steal the book)

PD

Great reviews, I would kill for Carmine

Do american "cool" people know that in Europe only alcoholics and homeless drink wine without food by its side???

Nuclear Lunchbox: Yeah, Der Mond is very nice, and it holds a special place in my heart because it was one of the first Evangelion art books I got... in other words, it was the beginning of my ridiculous obsession with Eva books.

Jäeger: I agree, Die Sterne (especially Die Sterne Ver.2.0) is such a great book. I just wish some of the pictures weren't so small! But it really is a fantastic collection of art, so I can't complain too much.

Oh yes, I love the Newtype 100% Collection as well! I'll probably be reviewing that one in a few weeks. So you have a Japanese first edition? That's cool! Do you read Japanese? I have the French edition.

AR-99: The craziest part is that new Evangelion merchandise is coming out all the time, so I'm sure my book collection will keep growing before I'm done! Yikes! This is going to be a lot of reviews... but I'm sure it will also be lots of fun.

If anybody has a ballpark of a decent price to buy it at, that'd be cool too. Thanks!

I've been starting to regret selling my Die Sterne (the original) several years back, that book really was beautiful. :( Hope its current owner is treasuring it. I found a copy around $28 used in good condition plus $4 shipping (from Japan) on Amazon...Everything else (used) is $30+, brand spanking new is $80 (no thanks).

Sailor Star Dust: Online shops that sell used Japanese books such as Mandarake or Suruga-ya sometimes have it at lower prices, although there are shipping costs to consider (and shopping service fees if you buy from Suruga-ya), so you'd have to calculate if it's worth it to go that route.

cyharding: Yes, I do! It's a very nice book if you want to see design sketches and some cracktastic ideas (the infamous "werewolf Asuka" picture is from here). Mostly black-and-white, but there are some beautiful color pictures as well.

TMBounty_Hunter: Hey, you're right... hardly anyone seems to mention Seiji Kio when talking about that book! Well, I'll be sure to mention him when I review it, then.

Literary Eagle wrote:Oh yes, I love the Newtype 100% Collection as well! I'll probably be reviewing that one in a few weeks. So you have a Japanese first edition? That's cool!

I first got that in German (to have a chance of reading the text), but it was a faulty print with many blank pages. My replacement is Japanese, but I've no idea about editions. It's the only Eva picture book I've got, apart from (!) all of the GroundWorks books for everything. As a result of what's being said here, I'll clearly have to consider getting hold of Der Mond and/or Die Sterne.

"Being human, having your health; that's what's important."(from: Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi )"As long as we're all living, and as long as we're all having fun, that should do it, right?"(from: The Eccentric Family )Avatar: Sad, sad Shinji... (details); Past avatars.Afterwards... my post-Q Evangelion fanfic (discussion)

Literary Eagle wrote:AR-99: The craziest part is that new Evangelion merchandise is coming out all the time, so I'm sure my book collection will keep growing before I'm done!

I don't see them slowing down despite Japan officially being in a recession now. Just came back 2 weeks ago and the $/¥ exchange rate had gone up from 105 when I exchanged on arrival to 113 when I changed back before leaving.

Literary Eagle wrote:shopping service fees if you buy from Suruga-ya

I had someone in Japan I know order for me so she gets compensated for her help with things like this but do you mean deputy fees or if you buy from Surugaya-atoo on Rakuten they hit you with fees? I noticed that the Rakuten prices in English are slightly marked up from going to the website directly.

Personally I would still buy from Surugaya in bulk since there's free shipping domestically when an order hits 3,000¥ and their discounting on used is very good.

Go with God, But Fight Like the Devil - Tagline, 1356Curator of: Evangelion Virtual Museum • Cold Steel • MFCSanity is no option for a collector. - Tolwyn • I just love eva so much that I figured it's worth investing in. - Paranoid

pwhodges wrote:I first got that in German (to have a chance of reading the text), but it was a faulty print with many blank pages.

Blank pages? Yikes! How unfortunate. I didn't even know something like that could happen! I'm glad you were able to find a decent version as a replacement.

Yes, Der Mond and Die Sterne are very nice. If you can't read French, then go for Die Sterne Ver.2.0 if you can... it has more pictures!

AR-99 wrote:I had someone in Japan I know order for me so she gets compensated for her help with things like this but do you mean deputy fees or if you buy from Surugaya-atoo on Rakuten they hit you with fees?

I was referring to deputy fees. I haven't tried ordering anything through Rakuten yet. Yeah, even with deputy fees factored in, the couple times I've bought stuff from Suruga-ya were very reasonable in terms of price.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Well, that's six book reviews done, and at least 81 more to go. Next I will be reviewing The End of Evangelion: Boku to Iu Kigou, and then Neon Genesis Evangelion Newtype 100% Collection, because some friends have asked me about those. Then I'll do Sore o Nasumono, since cyharding inquired about it. And after that, I'll do Evangelion ANIMA Visual Book for the sake of keeping the Yamashita stuff together. What can I say, I like being organized. Heh.

NEW POST:

Okay, in the past few days I have posted two new book reviews!

First, I decided to do the Neon Genesis Evangelion Volume 14 Premium Edition, because it's a brand new release and I thought people might be interested (no story spoilers; I only talked about the bonus items), so you can check that out if you haven't seen it yet.

And just yesterday, I did a review for a strange, dreamlike little book called The End of Evangelion: Boku to Iu Kigou. The ending of this book might be seen as Asuka/Shinji depending on how you choose to interpret it, so I hope you'll enjoy the review if you like LAS... and there's stuff for the other characters too, of course! (For those of you who prefer KawoShin, my next book review will be your turn: I'll be doing some translations that you'll find very interesting... and I'll include stuff for others as well, so no worries. I love all the Evangelion characters and I think that Asuka, Rei, and Kaworu are all equally valid potential love interests for Shinji, so I'll try my best to be egalitarian about shipping with these book reviews.)

Feedback would be appreciated, and if you have any questions concerning these books, feel free to ask!

I remember seeing scans of 僕という記号 ("What I call symbols"...does that mean Anno did put the book together?) years ago...what a strange book! Thanks for the info!

I...can't figure out what the very last text says (the stuff after Episode 15) lines. Thought I tried translating it years ago but it was so long ago I forget. Anyway you could extract the Moonspeak? It's something regarding A/S, and their hands... I love how the term LAS caught on here after I started using it!

Ah yes, the very last bit of text on that page... The first of the two sentences is basically "Shinji and Asuka lying on the sand." So that's simple enough. But the second one... yeesh. Something about "touch", "compatible" (or "not compatible"?) and "two people's hands"? Now I'm really wishing I'd had time to continue taking those Japanese lessons.

I'll put the two sentences here, in case anyone wants to give it a try:

Oh, directions from the script! I didn't think of checking that. Good catch!

And yes, mixed signals describes them quite well... according to the relationship chart in the book The Essential Evangelion Chronicle: Side B, Asuka's feelings for Shinji are "love/hate", and Shinji's feelings for Asuka are "complex feelings". Yes, I will be doing a review for this book eventually. I'm just waiting for the English version to come out first, because I want to see how it compares to the French version. In the meantime, I did write this post a couple of months ago that talked about the relationship chart a little: Teammate, sympathy

I remember hearing about that "teammate, sympathy" blurb (probably a post of yours) awhile ago--I really wonder when those books will be released stateside? I hope it wasn't cancelled, because it was supposed to be this year, I believe. I think Udon Books was the stateside publisher?

I've been super curious about that relationship chart for some time now--please translate it if you can!